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lego-linux-drivers-dkms

Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) for the ev3dev drivers.

The ev3dev drivers provide and easy to use interface for LEGO MINDSTORMS and LEGO WeDo hardware. Using these drivers you can use the LEGO WeDo USB Hub and LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 UART sensors with your desktop, laptop, Raspberry Pi or just about anything that runs Linux.

About

LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 introduced a new type of sensor that communicates via UART. This means that, given the correct voltage levels, these sensors can communicate with anything with a UART communication port.

This package provides a couple of Linux kernel modules so that you can use the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 UART sensors with anything that runs Linux and has an available serial port (and something to convert voltage levels if needed).

Current known UART sensors are:

...but any future LEGO, 3rd party or even homemade UART sensors should just work.

Additionally, LEGO WeDo has a USB Hub that connects to WeDo sensors and Power Functions motors and lights. These devices can also be used with these drivers.

Warning

These are kernel modules. They have the potential completely crash your machine. If this worries you, try it in a virtual machine.

Installation

Debian/Ubuntu

You can download the latest Debian package from https://github.com/ev3dev/lego-linux-drivers-dkms/releases.

It depends on the ev3dev-rules package available from the ev3dev package repository. You only have to do this once.

sudo apt-add-repository http://ev3dev.org/debian
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 2B210565
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ev3dev-rules

To install the Debian package (version number may be different):

sudo dpkg -i legoev3-uart-sensor-modules_7.0_all.deb

Other Linux

You can download the dkms tarball from https://github.com/ev3dev/lego-linux-drivers-dkms/releases (version number may be different).

wget https://github.com/ev3dev/lego-linux-drivers-dkms/releases/download/v7.0/lego-modules-7.0-source-only.dkms.tar.gz
sudo dkms add lego-modules-7.0-source-only.dkms.tar.gz

You also need to create a new .rules file in /etc/udev/rules.d and copy the contents of both https://github.com/ev3dev/lego-linux-drivers-dkms/blob/master/debian/udev and https://github.com/ev3dev/ev3dev-rules/blob/ev3dev-jessie/debian/ev3dev-rules.ev3dev.udev into it. You only need to do this part once.

Usage

For info about how to physically connect the sensor (including info about these voltage levels we've been talking about), check out this blog post.

Once you have the sensor connected, you need to find out which tty device it is connected to. This varies based on what you are connecting to, so we'll leave this up to you to figure out. As an example, we'll say we are using a USB serial port at /dev/ttyUSB0.

Next, you need to attach the LEGOEV3_UART line discipline to the tty. 29 is the the number we have assigned to the line discipline.

sudo ldattach 29 /dev/ttyUSB0

Now, you will have a sensor at /sys/class/lego-sensor/ that you can play with. For information on how to use the MINDSTORMS sensor class (lego-sensor) in sysfs, checkout the ev3dev docs.

If you want to automate the ldattach command, check out that same blog post for information on how your can do this using udev.

Issues

If you have problems or find a bug, search the issues here and open a new issue if you can't find an existing issue that helps.